Online research in philosophy

Frege's theory of indirect contexts and the shift of sense and reference in these contexts has puzzled many. What can the hierarchy of indirect senses, doubly indirect senses, and so on, be? Donald Davidson gave a well-known 'unlearnability' argument against Frege's theory. The present paper argues that the key to Frege's theory lies in the fact that whenever a reference is specified (even though many senses determine a single reference), it is specified in a particular way, so that giving a reference implies giving a sense; and that one must be 'acquainted' with the sense. It is argued that an indirect sense must be 'immediately revelatory' of its reference. General principles for Frege's doctrine of sense and reference are sated, for both direct and indirect quotation, to be understood iteratively. I also discuss Frege's doctrine of tensed and first person statements in the light of my analysis. The views of various other authors are examined. The conclusion is to ascribe to Frege an implicit doctrine of acquaintance similar to that of Russell.

Communication by shared meaning, themastery of word semantics,metarepresentation and metamentation aremental abilities, uniquely human, that share a sense ofintentionality or reference. The latteris developed by a naive psychology or interpretation – acompetence dedicated to representingintentional relations between conspecifics and the world. Theidea that interpretation builds new mentalabilities around a sense of reference is based on three linesof analysis – conceptual, psychological andevolutionary. The conceptual analysis reveals that a senseof reference is at the heart of the abilitiesin question. Psychological data track tight developmentalcorrelations between interpretation and theabilities it designs. Finally, an evolutionary hypothesislooks at why interpretation designed thosenew abilities around a sense of reference.

A strictly Millian approach to proper names is defended, i.e. one in which expressions when used properly ('onymically') refer directly, i.e. without the semantic intermediaryship of the words that appear to comprise them. The approach may appear self-evident for names which appear to have no component parts (in current English) but less so for others. Two modes of reference are distinguished for potentially ambiguous expressions such as The Long Island . A consequence of this distinction is to allow a speculative neurolinguistics of proper ('onymic') and semantic ('non-onymic') reference. A further consequence is that translation of onymically referring expressions is impossible (since they have no semantic content), and some apparently self-evident objections to this view are met by insisting on a distinction between a proper name as a referring expression and its etymology. The nature of the linguistic mechanism(s) by which an expression becomes proper (i.e. loses sense) shows that etymological opacity is a precondition for the survival of words in certain proper names, furnishing evidence for reference without sense. The process of becoming proper amounts to abrogation of sense for the purpose of reference, which is precisely the requirement for a systematic defence of Mill.

This book aims to develop certain aspects of Gottlob Frege's theory of meaning, especially those relevant to intentional logic. It offers a new interpretation of the nature of senses, and attempts to devise a logical calculus for the theory of sense and reference that captures as closely as possible the views of the historical Frege.

The essays in this volume, which includes contributions from the flag bearers of several competing schools of constitutional interpretation, provides an ...

The dominant strain of constitutional interpretation in Canada holds both that originalist theories of constitutional interpretation are not a part of Canadian constitutional doctrine, and that this is a very good thing. The Canadian courts (and academy) fully subscribe to a theory of living constitutional interpretation. While living constitutional interpretation in Canada is most often defined in terms of its incompatibility with originalist interpretation, there has not been a meaningful engagement in Canada with contemporary schools of originalist interpretation. The originalism rejected by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1985 (and periodically reaffirmed thereafter), is not the New Originalism, and a rejection of this new family of interpretive theories does not necessarily follow from the fact of the Supreme Court of Canada's rejection of original intent originalism. Unfortunately, the Canadian courts have continued to affirm living tree constitutional doctrine and denounce originalism without providing much of an account of either theory.This paper is a prefatory study to an engagement with new originalist scholarship. I attempt a statement of the current commitments in Canadian living constitutional doctrine (pausing to engage with theoretical arguments that have been made in its defence) and, in passing, note the Supreme Court's attitudes towards originalism. My purpose is to determine what the central commitments of living tree constitutional doctrine are, as a preliminary step towards a later study to determine the extent to which Canadian doctrine is truly incompatible with orginalist interpretation. I explore what I observe to be the four central commitments to living tree constitutionalism in Canada: (1) the doctrine of progressive interpretation; (2) the use of a purposive methodology in progressive interpretation; (3) the absence of any necessary role for the original intent or meaning of framers in interpreting the constitution; and (4) the presence of other constraints on judicial interpretation.

This paper argues for the importance of the concept of purported reference in understanding linguistic meaning and reference.

The article presents Frege's distinction between Sense and Reference. After a short introduction, it explains the puzzle which gave rise to the distinction; Frege's earlier solution, and his reasons for its later repudiation. The distinction, which embodies Frege's second solution, is then discussed in two phases. The first, which is restricted to proper names, sets out its most basic features. The second discusses 'empty' names; indirect speech, and the distinction for predicates and for complete sentences. Finally, two criticisms, by Russell and by Kripke, are briefly set out.

I want to begin by distinguishing between what I will call a pure Fregean theory of reference and a theory of direct reference. A pure Fregean theory of reference holds that all reference to objects is determined by a sense or content. The kind of theory I have in mind is obviously inspired by Frege, but I will not be concerned with whether it is the theory that Frege himself held.1 A theory of direct reference, as I will understand it, denies that all reference to objects is determined by sense or content. We will also distinguish between a theory of reference for thought, and for language. This gives us a fourfold classification of theories. What is puzzling about direct reference theories is not that the semantics of an expression in a public language should assign as its semantic value just a referent, but how such facts could be understood to reflect an underlying feature of thought. There are two interconnected aspects to this..

Constitutional interpretation is problematic because it can be difficult to distinguish legitimate interpretation from illegitimate change. The distinction depends largely on what a constitution is. A constitution, like any other law, necessarily has a meaning, which pre-exists judicial interpretation: it is not a set of meaningless marks on paper. Any plausible constitutional theory must offer an account of the nature of that meaning. In doing so, it must address two main questions. The first is whether the meaning of the constitution is given solely by its words, or also by additional evidence of underlying intentions, purposes or values. The second question is whether, in either case, its meaning is determined by the original meanings, intentions, purposes or values of the founding generation, or by contemporary meanings, intentions, purposes or values. This question divides so-called 'originalists' from 'non-originalists'. This article discusses all these alternatives, and the main arguments for and against them. It is subtitled 'Originalism' because it defends a moderate version of that position; however, it is argued that this is equivalent to a moderate version of non-originalism.